


Waiting Game

by AliceInKinkland



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: BDSM, Character Study, F/F, Masturbation, Missing Scene, Obsession, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 09:25:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17526086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceInKinkland/pseuds/AliceInKinkland
Summary: Phèdre will come to her soon. Melisande must believe this. The game is begun, the players in motion. Melisande should enjoy this part. If all goes according to plan, perhaps Melisande will even look back in longing one day for the time Phèdre was not yet hers in entirety, the days when her yielding was ever a question.





	Waiting Game

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever thought about how Melisande had an elaborate prison/sex dungeon ready to go by the time Phèdre fell into her trap in La Serenissima? And how therefore she must have spent a considerable amount of time, while waiting for said trap to close around Phèdre, secretly constructing said sex dungeon? I’ve, uh—yeah, I’ve been thinking about it.

The upholsterer is late.

Melisande Shahrizai assumed someone compelled by blackmail would be more punctual. The other labourers she has contracted for this job have been very much on time, showing up panting from their journeys along the canals of the city, a healthy look of fear in their eyes. But this upholsterer—today it is the second time he has been delayed. She could still be with Imriel, watching him giggle as she dangled her necklaces against the morning sun streaming through the windows of her bedchamber, but instead she is down here, where light barely penetrates, waiting on this tardy man.

Melisande takes a deep breath to calm her frustration. Sometimes she feels as though most of her days right now are spent waiting. Waiting for her and Benedicte’s plan to fall into place, waiting until she can show more of herself to others once again—and waiting, most of all, for one particular component of this plan to find her way into Melisande’s life once more.

It is a dull ache is Melisande’s breast, how long it has been since she last saw Phèdre. It harmonizes with the twin ache of her exile to twist at her heart at unexpected moments. It makes her impatient, a risk she cannot countenance. She must continually master herself, after all, if she seeks to master others.

So Melisande keeps busy—busy with her darling Imriel, and busy with this project.

The suite of rooms in the basement of this section of the Little Court was a dungeon already, but not quite the kind of dungeon Melisande has in mind for its new intended occupant. It has taken a carpenter, a painter, a tanner, a weaver, and now this tardy upholsterer, but the dank, cold rooms have been been transformed into something eminently livable, especially for one such as Phèdre, with rich tapestries and furniture designed for all the purposes Melisande anticipates requiring.

Not all of the furniture needs to be upholstered. The cross, for instance, is gorgeous as-is, and essentially complete, the wooden beams polished and smooth, the hooks for restraints sturdily-attached and unobtrusive. But the bench needs a nice padded cushion, as does the chair and the short stool beside it.

Melisande’s tongue darts out to moisten her lips. This will all be worth the wait.

* * *

Many nights, Melisande dreams of Phèdre: Phèdre’s face, contorted in agonized feeling; Phèdre’s fingers, grasping at nothing; Phèdre’s stunningly singular eyes. She would like to believe these are prophetic visions, but there is no one here in La Serenissima whom Melisande believes truly gifted enough in augury to confirm this. Ah, well; divinatory or not, Melisande awakes after each one alight with pulsing desire, which is reason enough to appreciate such dreams.

Down here, in the microcosm of Kushiel’s dark truth she is in the process of creating, Melisande feels her body ignite the way it does in these dreams.

Phèdre will come to her soon. Melisande must believe this. Soon, she will arrive in La Serenissima. Soon, she will make her unwitting approach. The game is begun, the players in motion. Melisande should enjoy this part. If all goes according to plan, perhaps Melisande will even look back in longing one day for the time Phèdre was not yet hers in entirety, the days when her yielding was ever a question.

Because oh, Phèdre will break, in this place, and Melisande will take pleasure in the breaking. This is the conclusion they are ever coming to, the pitch at which her blood and Phèdre’s sings joint promises whenever they set eyes on one another. Melisande knows Phèdre, and Melisande knows herself.

Is it fear she feels, when she imagines it—imagines the depths her cruelty might descend when met by the nigh-unnamable beauty of Phèdre’s suffering? Melisande shakes her head. No, but there is fear in her, of a different tenor. Fear her gambit may fail, despite everything, and yet also fear that she will succeed, and in so doing strip away the core of Phèdre, the blazing fire of her selfhood—the part Melisande loves most of all.

* * *

Melisande runs her hand along the smooth wood of the x-shaped cross. She has had it affixed to the western wall of the room, across from the bed. This could be the first thing Phèdre sets eyes on each morning, once she is installed here, unless her eyes alight instead on the restraints permanently affixed to the bed posts, or on the flagellary, or the stocks… No matter which, her purpose will infuse her every waking moment. Just as Melisande intends.

Once more, Melisande pushes down her impatience, the frustration of her longing threatening to overwhelm her. If only it were socially acceptable for her to take a lover here; if only Benedicte did not submit to the scratch of her fingernails with quite such an air of good-humoured resignation—but no, the truth of the matter is that since Phèdre, no one else has been enough for Melisande. No lover, no husband, no well-trained adept of Valerian house has cried out the way Phèdre cries out, or compelled Melisande to deliver such answers as those cries invite.

And how Phèdre will cry out, once she is here. Melisande has taken to imagining it, since time is something is rarely lacks of late.

The first time—the first night after Phèdre cedes and accepts Melisande’s offer—Melisande will begin by seating herself in this chair, this chair that the upholsterer should currently be here working on.

(And where is he? Melisande has no way of checking the time in this room, because she means to make Phèdre float in timelessness, but by her estimate, it is well after the hour they agreed upon.)

As she cannot sit on the incomplete chair, Melisande lies down on the bed, and lets her hand descend, finding the hems of her skirts and maneuvering them out of the way.

The chair, yes. This is where she will begin: sitting, and beckoning for Phèdre to kneel in front of her. _Look at me_ , she will say, and watch as Phèdre struggles to hold her gaze.

She will have a bowl of grapes placed beside her, if they are in season when Phèdre is finally here. She will alternate between feeding herself and Phèdre, making Phèdre chase after the fruit with her mouth, pulling her hand away at the last second. Yes, and Phèdre’s tongue will lap at the juices left on Melisande’s fingers, and she will look up at Melisande with a look of such surrender that Melisande’s breath will catch.

Melisande slips her hand between her legs, running her finger through her growing wetness. She will hear the upholsterer’s footsteps on the stairs if he approaches, and she must allow herself these small indulgences, so long is her wait.

The grapes are wrong, however; the wrong way to begin. Phèdre will be angry, when she comes here, angry and defeated. They will both of them need Melisande to take a firmer hand. The grapes can come later.

Well and so. Melisande will seat herself upon the soon-to-be upholstered chair, and order Phèdre to undress. If she hesitates, or tries to protest, Melisande will cast her gaze at the room around them, as if to say: _you chose this_. As if to say: _I could send you back, back to wailing winds and a madness with no pleasure in it_. (She would not do it. She prays Phèdre will not call her bluff).

Will Phèdre’s movements as she removes her clothes be the steady motions of one well-practiced in Naamah’s arts, or will Melisande be able to detect a hint of nervousness—a shaking hand as Phèdre undoes the fastenings of her dress, a jerk of her leg as she steps out of the fabric?

Melisande presses a finger inside herself, and then begins to stroke the bud of her desire. Either way, ah—to have Phèdre naked in front of her once again will be glorious.

Next, Melisande will have Phèdre fetch the box of clamps from its place in the chest she has placed at the foot of the bed. She will affix them to Phèdre’s skin one by one: one on each of her pert little nipples, and three others on each of her breasts besides. Two on the tender flesh of each of Phèdre’s thighs, the smoothness of the skin practically begging to be adorned with marks. And then finally, three on each of Phèdre’s perfect outer labia, already slicked with evidence of desire, and one last clamp directly onto the pearl hidden between them.

 _Would you like to taste me, now?_ Melisande will say, and when Phèdre will nod, Melisande will shake her head. Not yet.

Melisande’s finger speeds up against her own slick flesh, her free hand gripping and twisting at the bedclothes as though she holds a fistful of Phèdre’s hair. In moments like these, all her doubts are erased—she has plans, and contingencies, and one of them will bring Phèdre to her, tossed at her feet by the storm-winds of fate and Melisande’s own intelligence alike.

Yes, and that first night, Melisande will keep Phèdre waiting the way Phèdre has kept Melisande waiting all these many months. When she removes the clamps—and oh, the sounds Phèdre will make as the blood flows back into her abused flesh!—Melisande will replace them with hard grains of rice for Phèdre to kneel on, watch the pain build slowly in Phèdre’s expression, the way her eyelids will flutter closed and her teeth will worry at her bottom lip.

And after that—perhaps the cross? No—she will remain in the chair, and order Phèdre over her knee like a disobedient child, testing out different implements one by one until Phèdre screams and writhes against her, her wetness leaving a mark on the silk of Melisande’s dress. She will have Phèdre fetch each toy in turn, her backside slightly redder and her steps slightly less graceful each time she goes to the flagellary and back, draping herself over Melisande’s lap once again, submitting over and over to each new torment.

Melisande is close to the peak of her pleasure, so close. She throws her head back against the pillow, closing her eyes, calling to mind the image of Phèdre’s face, not as it was the very last time she saw her, but the time before that, their final night together, Phèdre at turns pliant and resistant, fearful and utterly lovely under Melisande’s meticulous attentions.

She will push Phèdre back to her knees on the floor, and Phèdre will crumple there, tears half dried on her cheeks, hips making small, unconscious motions, seeking out pleasure which is not yet forthcoming.

Melisande will repeat her earlier question, and Phèdre will cry out her answer this time, _yes, my lady, please, yes_.

And Melisande will shake her head again.

She will wait until Phèdre begs, truly begs, those sweet lips pressing beseeching kisses on Melisande’s skirts, and then she will deliver the blow: _Why are you in such a hurry, my beautiful_ anguissette _? I was under the impression we had all the time in the world._

Melisande’s desire finally crests and breaks as she imagines the look on Phèdre’s face at _that_.

* * *

“I’m sorry for your loss,” says Melisande, when the upholsterer finally makes an appearance.

He turns a blank face towards her. “I beg your pardon?”

Melisande frowns. “Well, something of major importance must have kept you from arriving on time today,” she says. “I assumed it might be a death in the family.”

“Oh,” says the upholsterer. He looks around the room. “No death, no. My apologies, Princessa.”

Melisande stares past him for long enough that he turns to look at the row of toys hanging on the wall behind him: floggers, switches, crops; a cat o’nine tails strung with bits of glass. Melisande lets the moment draw itself out like the time before a strike from such an implement would fall. The upholsterer swallows. He truly thinks she would take pleasure in bending him over the half-done furniture, this man with little training in the arts of surrender, and even less talent. Melisande almost laughs. She has much more delicate instruments to play.

Or she will, soon enough.


End file.
